 Hi, I'm Leigh Deforth and I'm with the City of Columbia and I work as a comprehensive planner and I'm here with Leigh Smilgrove of One Columbia Arts and History and we're here to talk to you today about the cultural planning process known as Amplify Columbia. Amplify Columbia is a 12 to 18 month process that will help us to really dig in, learn a lot about the cultural resources Columbia already has and find ways to make that whole cultural community much stronger. The cultural planning process is about 12 to 18 months, it'll involve a lot of things like group meetings with targeted audiences, different interest groups that have a vested interest in cultural planning and it'll look at lots of different ways to connect and one of the first ways that people can give us input is through a online survey we're conducting right now, it's available on the website AmplifyColumbia.com. It's a short survey with a few questions about what people might know about the current cultural scene in Columbia and maybe ways that they can give us advice about how to improve it or ways that they want to see some change. The process for cultural planning really kicked off in late January where we had a public announcement that involved our city poet laureate and a performance by Indigo Sol and some key stakeholders like Councilman Sam Davis and Mayor Benjamin who spoke about the importance of cultural planning, planning together and really making our city shine as a hub of arts and culture. There will be other opportunities to participate you can certainly send an email to hello at amplifycolumbia.com if you have a certain comment you want to make or question about the process and you can also participate in some of the town halls that will be upcoming likely in March, late March or early April. As a city are always looking to identify what our vision is for for the coming years that the comprehensive plan is a 10-year plan and we're really asking folks to to think about where they want us to be in 10 years where they'd like us to you know how they'd like us to look how they'd like the built environment to look but also how they'd like cultural engagement to look so what are we missing what are we not missing in the city what are you most proud of that you want to see continue what what what do you think needs more support so it's a it's a good way for folks to get involved in really your vision for Columbia and we recognize that while we have to come up with one comprehensive vision that everyone's vision is going to be a little bit different and without your input we really we really may not be getting all the pieces of the pie. Columbia has been fortunate enough to have a lot of talent for a long time and organizations really have stepped out and they've started working a lot outside their own doors working with other partners creating really a vibrant cultural scene and now's a chance for us to kind of make a turn where we use that collaborative spirit and bring us all together with a strategy for how to make it grow even more and really get a lot more national prominence for the city for its arts and cultural scene. If you'd like to give your input to the whole Amplify process you can find more information at AmplifyColumbia.com and you can find the survey there where you can really share your thoughts and vision for Columbia's cultural community. Thank you so much for joining us today and we hope to see you out there as we discuss and plan for our cultural resources.